~ In Pursuit of Truth and Beauty in Art and Life

Ancient Beauty: The Egyptian Pyramids

It always amazes me when I think of how the pyramids were built around 2,500 BC. That makes them roughly 4,500 years old. I love to think of how, for that period of time, through all the passing of different eras, empires and nations, these great structures have stood. Generation after generation of vastly different people from vastly different societies have gazed upon these structures, virtually unchanged in all that time. Nations have passed, languages have been born and died, religions have come and gone, but the pyramids remain. It has been suggested that if all of mankind were to disappear in some sort of apocalyptic plague or war, within 10,000 years all our buildings would be completely consumed by the natural world and nothing would be left–except the pyramids.

There is such a stark and simple beauty to these structures that one never really tires of admiring them. And given the stark beauty of the Egyptian landscape, it is easy to understand how we have been seduced by their romance for so many thousands of years. As monumental tombs for the early pharaohs of Egypt to help them on their journey to the afterlife, and as the greatest physical structures ever built to express man’s longing for the divine, celestial sphere of the heavens, their spiritual and religious awe can still strike us today. They do indeed still seem to fulfill their ancient purpose of reaching out and actually joining with the sky and the sun.

The pyramids are truly timeless and timeless beauty is often the best kind of beauty.